Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter to Take Company Private
Tron founder Justin Sun responded by tweeting he would offer $60 a share, compared with Musk's $54.20.
Apr 14, 2022 at 10:24 a.m. UTC:format(webp)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/coindesk/Q5EEUGTPIVBODLDSXVDL3NZBQI.jpg)
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Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car maker Tesla (TSLA), offered to buy social media company Twitter (TWTR) for about $43 billion in cash.
- The offer of $54.20 a share is a 38% premium over the price of the stock the day before Musk's investment in the company was made public earlier this month, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Musk plans to take the company private in order to "go through the changes that need to be made," he wrote in a text to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor replicated in the filing.
- In late March, Musk criticized the social media platform for failing to adhere to principles of free speech, saying that it serves as "de facto public town square" and this failure therefore undermines democracy.
- "I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," Musk stated.
- Following Musk's filing, Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain, tweeted a thread in which he said he would offer $60 a share for the company.
- Twitter shares surged more than 12% in premarket trading following the news. They were trading recently up about 6.4% to just under $49.
- Twitter plans to hold a town hall meeting with its employees at 5 p.m. Eastern time (21:00 UTC) on Thursday to discuss the Musk's offer to buy the company, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
- Musk took a 9.2% stake in Twitter for an estimated $2.89 billion earlier this month, quickly followed by an announcement that he would be joining the company's board of directors. However, CEO Parag Agrawal said a few days later that a board position was no longer on the cards.
- "My offer is my best and final offer, and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder," Musk said, according to the filing.
- Musk's announcements often make ripples in the crypto world because of his well-known interest in the industry. Meme-based crypto dogecoin rose 11% following the news of Musk's initial Twitter investment, and was up about 6% after Thursday's news. The coin is up 5% over the last 24 hours.
- Twitter has established itself as a crypto-friendly platform, adding the ability to send tips in bitcoin last September with the facility extended to ether in February.
UPDATE (April 14, 10:46 UTC): Adds total value in headline, first paragraph; adds share-price reaction, background on Musk's stake.
UPDATE (April 14, 11:24 UTC): Trims first bullet point; adds desire to take Twitter private, criticism of the platform; changes photo.
UPDATE (April 14, 11:45 UTC): Adds Justin Sun's tweet.
UPDATE (April 14, 12:53 UTC): Added Thursday's price info on DOGE.
UPDATE (April 14, 15:28 UTC): Added information about Twitter's plan to hold an employee meeting on Thursday.
UPDATE (April 14 21:20 UTC): Clarifies that Musk offered to buy the shares he doesn't already own for $54.20 a share, which values Twitter at $43B.
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Sheldon Reback is a CoinDesk news editor based in London. He owns a small amount of ether.
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Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.